Gaining the good stuff as I lose the bad.

Month: March 2015

You know how if you put a hamster in one of those balls so they can roll around your house and pretend to be wild and free but are (theoretically) safe from cat attacks, they inevitably find a corner and keep ramming their head into it? That was me yesterday.

Yesterday’s starting weight: 218.4

Yesterday’s calories: 1966. I was doing really well and then, around midnight, I was like, I have a need. A need for pizza. The willpower was not there and there was indeed pizza. That’s what pushed my calories from the 1200 range to the 2k range. Not so great.

Yesterday’s exercise: If you recall, I had planned to do the 7 minute workout and the long walk. I started the 7 minute workout and rolled my ankle stepping down from the step ups on a chair move and it was swollen all afternoon. Total fail. I had it elevated and iced all afternoon/evening.

Today’s weight: 216.8. I’m down 1.5 pounds. I assume I’ll see a return of the weight tomorrow what with the pizza.

Life issues: Yesterday I did the best that I could. I did my article and waited in vain for it to be edited in time for me to get another one. The actual final edit didn’t come through until 3am.

I did some laundry but that’s about all I did from a chore standpoint.

What I really focused on was the reading on my list. I finished one of the books on my list, one of the TV shows on my list, and got almost done with two other books on my list. A little bit more on those and we’ll be done.

Also yesterday, the husband wasn’t speaking to me because he’d promised to handle the worst of the deal with my ex–since dealing with him gives me panic attacks–and then didn’t do it. I was upset and he was upset that I was upset, which I have never understood. I did it myself today.

Today is not going so well. I am paralyzed with fear and anxiety and can barely even get through this blog post. But the day is almost over now. In another couple of hours I get to talk to the kids and then I can take some meds and put myself to bed.

Saturday’s calories: 1042. This may not be accurate. Indeed, from Sunday’s weight and today’s I’m sure it’s not. We went out to dinner. I ate only meat, no carbs that I know of, and that’s the calorie count as provided by My Fitness Pal, but I’m sure that’s not entirely accurate.

Saturday’s exercise:10,073 steps

Sunday’s weight: 219.4

Sunday’s calories: 1121 but again, this is not accurate. There were cookies, somewhere between six and twelve, that aren’t accounted for with this calorie count. They’re homemade so I have no idea how many calories are in them.

Sunday’s exercise: 10,048 steps

Today’s weight: 218.4

Friday evening I had an unreasonable amount of pina coladas. I then dragged myself up on Saturday morning to finish getting the house clean and make cookies because my father in law was coming into town to help work on the never ending bathroom remodel. And then I spent the entire day just reading. It was glorious.

He took us out to dinner and then I grabbed the dogs and went on a walk until I hit my steps.

Although I was careful at dinner not to go for the bread basket or anything like that, I expected to be up on Sunday and I was indeed, by about three pounds.

Sunday morning the men continued to work (I am, I think, just ONE MORE WEEKEND OF WORK away from an actual functional shower!) and I continued to read and console myself with the cookies I’d made for my father in law. After dinner I took the dogs out again until I hit my steps and I almost hit the water yesterday, not like Friday or Saturday, and so I expected an improvement this morning. And lo, it has come to pass. But on the other hand, I had hoped that it would be a bit better than this. That dinner, no matter what the calories, was not anywhere near 2-3 pounds worth of calories.

Life issues: My lawyer says the only way to stop the ex is to take him back to court. I’m going to offer him a deal first, because maybe if he feels like he can torture me without legal being involved that’ll be good enough.

But, and this is amazing to me, the ex has cojones of steel because after hitting me with not one, but two massive legal actions in the past week, he asked me for a favor. He wanted me to give him the kids this weekend for Easter at his church.

Ponder that. Let it sink in. He instigated things that will cost me thousands in legal fees and then immediately asked for a favor.

I ignored his request because obviously I did.

And this is where the cojones went from steel to titanium. He then said, well, since you’re not responding, I’m just going to take them this weekend without your permission. We’ll figure out a weekend you can have in exchange later.

Are you effing kidding me? Who does that?

Anyway. Between my deal and my lawyer we’ll work it out and I’m sure that he won’t manage to steal the children from me. Every time that I think I’ve found the limits of his insanity, he manages to up the ante.

I’m already working today. The goal for today is to be good with the calories, get my steps and the 7 minute workout in, do some chores around the house and some reading. It should be a fairly easy day, all things considered.

Whenever things get truly terrible, I think, hey, at least I’m still alive. Thursday was one of those days.

Yesterday’s starting weight: 216.8

Calories: 1878. I had Taco Bell for dinner. And two Cuba libres. It was a bad, bad day.

Exercise: Hahahahaha. That’s funny. No. 1271 steps.

Work: 0/0

Today’s weight: 216.0. If you’re confused by that number, you’re not the only one. I expect it to go up about 5 pounds tomorrow. There’s no justifiable reason for the scale to go down like that today. I was barely even drinking water yesterday. CHAOS.

Life Issues: I have a nasty infection that I had to go to the doctor for, and I also had therapy, and between the two and when I had to pick up the kids I had precious little time to do anything at all.

But I DID have time to check email, mostly on my phone. And that’s how I found out that the only way to stop the ex from continuing to steal my time with the kids is to take him back to court or get him to agree to stop being a jackass. Given the amount of time he’s devoted to refining the art of jackassery, the second option seems a little unlikely.

Hence the Cuba libres.

This morning, I saw the endodontist for my teeth. The good news is, she didn’t add anything to the original dentist’s assessment. The bad news is that my insurance only covers 25% of major services, not 50% like I thought. This is no good, no good at all. This means instead of the 4k I’d expected to spend, I’m looking at 5793.00. Almost 6k, instead of 4k.

Ask yourself: Can I afford to spent 6k on dental work? Can I afford the thousands of dollars it’s going to cost to get the legal straightened out, again? The answer to all things is a resounding no.

If you know any millionaires who are looking for someone to sponsor, throw them my way.

Work: 0/0 for 0 dollars. They didn’t finish editing Tuesday’s piece until late last night and I’m not allowed to pull a new article until the edits on the previous one are complete, for now. And I’ve decided I’d rather not work for pennies, and would rather do some chores or some of my list items instead.

Today’s weight: 216.8 This is fairly incredible considering the calories situation and the lack of exercise situation. I’m not convinced this is a “real” weight, though. My body is well known for taking an extra day to react to high calorie days, so we shall see what tomorrow brings us.

Life issues: Yesterday my lawyer and I both put in time and effort fighting the frivolous machinations of the ex-husband. I thought we were making progress and then, after a disastrous PTA meeting, I got an email from my ex. He’s no longer acknowledging my right to have the children one day a week. He’s claiming that a potential typo in the orders invalidates my right to the children. Despite the fact that 1) we agreed to this 2) there’s several mentions elsewhere in the orders about the Thursday nights 3) this is part of the standard possession schedule for our state and 4) he’s been obeying it literally every week since the divorce was final, nearly 6 years now.

My evening consisted of frantic emails to my lawyer and the school principal. Theoretically, she can’t just give him the kids on my day. Unless he convinces her that his reading of the orders is correct. This is concerning to me because he is indeed charming and persuasive.

I also called the local police department to give them a heads up, figuring, you know, it’s not every day that someone provides written warning nearly 24 hours before committing parental abduction, but here’s a fun life tidbit for you: they don’t care. At all. They said, we don’t get involved in custody disputes, take it up with your lawyer. Good to know. I mean, *I* thought that parental abduction was a real thing but apparently not in the eyes of our cops. I get that they have murders and whatnot to occupy them but c’mon.

Today’s goals:

1) successfully retrieve the children

2) complete another article

3) see my doctor AND my therapist

4) 7 minute workout

5) meet my steps goal

I’m also hoping my lawyer can bitch-slap the ex into the dirt but that’s not really on my list of goals, since it’s on him to do it. I try to have a positive and upbeat attitude about my ex because he is the father of my children, he’s important to them, and it’s best for us all if no one is spewing hate or bile. But at times like these it’s hard not to wish that he could provide definitive proof of spontaneous human combustion.

Exercise: 7 minute workout (although I started to collapse a bit on the last two exercises) and 4721 steps. Not a perfect day since I didn’t make my step count but much closer.

Work: 10/10 articles for 35.25. This number is abysmal, of course, but this is what happens when 9/10 articles are done for half a cent a word.

Today’s weight: 217.4. This represents just .4 more than my lowest weight, right before Thanksgiving. Just another 2.5 ish pounds to the 30 pound loss mark.

Items on my to do list today: 72. I have no expectation of completing it but I’d like to knock down a few more items.

Goal for today: 10 articles, long walk, PTA meeting, and some of the housework which makes up the bulk of the to do list.

Today’s life issues: None! I mean, it took two sleeping pills to get me to sleep and I’m not as alert and focused as I’d like to be but I’m still rolling right along.

Today’s victory: I bought a pair of the next size smaller shorts this morning when I was at the store, and they FIT. They fit well enough that I can wear them without feeling like a sausage trying to escape its casing. This is awesome news. This makes me just one size away from my acceptable range of sizes.

Calories: 1220. That includes more carbs than I should have had, specifically four slices of sourdough toast. In my defense, that is the good sourdough from San Francisco. It was sent to me as a gift and it would be churlish and stupid to refuse to nom nom nom that all up. It’s almost gone now, I’ll probably have a piece or two today and then it’ll all be over. Other than the sourdough I was good.

Exercise: no 7 minute workout and no walk. Total cosmic fail.

Work: zero work, zero income. Also total fail.

Today’s weight: DOWN .2 of a pound, which is better than I deserved given the carbs and the lack of movement. Today’s weight: 218.8. Just another 4 pounds to the 30 pound loss mark.

Yesterday’s legal issues really effected my functioning. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve been that far off the mark. At some point in the afternoon, a stranger drove up to the house and rang the doorbell. I had just gotten out of the bath so I figured, let him ring. I watched on the video feed, though. He rang the doorbell, stood on my driveway talking on his phone, walked next door, came back, sat by his car, came back up and knocked on the door, more driveway phone time, and then he left. This is a nothing event. It could have been anything at all. But I was convinced that he was trying to serve me with more legal papers from my ex. Even though he had nothing in his hands.

I was a shaking, nervous wreck, even with the buspar to soothe my nerves. Nothing I could do would calm me down. In the end, I couldn’t sleep. This is not new, the anxiety makes me have sleep issues. I took a unisom. And then another. And then another. It should never take three unisom to put me to sleep. And of course, that many sleeping pills made me sleep heavy and long and it was late when I woke up so today is off schedule already.

Today’s life issue: the day is half over and I’ve done nothing, so I’m behind schedule. This is the last full work day I had, too. Tomorrow I have to take the husband into work in the morning and then do PTA in the early evening, Thursday I have therapy and the kids, and then Friday I have the endodontist appointment. The goal for today is to complete a full day’s work and do the exercise.

If you’re new, wander through the about section and the other sections as you like.

The basic plan for this blog is post my progress the previous day in terms of food, income, weight, and exercise. But since this is day 1, I don’t have any of that to say. Instead, I’m going to lay out my plan and people with more knowledge and experience in these areas can comment and assist if they feel compelled.

Work: I want to do 10 articles per work day. Once the new job site comes fully up that will represent a decent living. Until then I’m filling in the gaps with a place that pays half a cent a word. It’s mostly for people who like to feel busy but don’t really like money that much.

Exercise: I want to do the 7 minute workout to the best of my capability every other day, moving to every day within a month or so. Plus I want to take the dogs out for 10k steps/day.

Today’s life issues: I’m back into a lawsuit situation. Less than 3 months away from the last one, which defies all past history. The evil ex usually gives me longer than that. They tell me what he’s doing right now is called “abuse of process” and it’s a real thing. I’m trying to resolve it in a way that doesn’t cost me a million dollars in legal fees or weeks of stress. But I can’t stop shaking today. It’s making work pretty much impossible because, you know, shaking in terror isn’t great for focus. I’m adding some buspar and will have some tea and maybe a hot bath and try again. But I don’t have the kids this weekend, so it’s possible to make up this workday over the weekend. As long as this is the only day where I’m off my form this week I’ll be ok.

I also have a lot of things on tap this week that will suck some time off my life. I have PTA on Wednesday night which means (since we have only one car) that I need to get up early and do the morning commute, then out to the other end of town for the meeting and back again. That’s easily 3 hours of driving. This is why I listen to so many podcasts. Thursday I do the same because I have the kids and a therapy appointment, and then again on Friday because I have to see the endodontist and get her to officially tell me how terrible it’s going to be. I’m supposed to meet a friend for lunch this week or next and I’m going to push it to next to buy myself some time.

Finally, the tooth pain is pretty bad today. I’ve been dosing with ibuprofen every four hours for nearly a week. It’s really not good at all.

The other thing that’s happening in my life that isn’t really the focus of this blog but will impact it is that I am a huge fan of lists. I have a to-read list that is is the 3500 book range. I’m trying to read two off the “classics” section, one off the “history” section and one off the “religious/spiritual” section per month plus whatever other books I can fit in around the edges. I have 9 ongoing craft projects that I intend to complete this year. I have 128 seasons of TV shows and 308 movies on the “to watch” list. Some people have real hobbies. I have making and completing lists.